Over 30 years after its 11-season run came to an end, Cheers is still considered to be one of the best sitcoms of all time. The TV show following the regulars at the title bar was anchored by Ted Danson’s Sam Malone, and in Season 3, Cheers introduced Kelsey Grammer’s Dr. Frasier Crane, who would go on to lead his own successful 11-season show and is now reprising his beloved character on the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive Frasier revival. However, just because Sam and Frasier were on friendly terms with each other on Cheers (most of that time) doesn’t mean that Danson and Grammer always were. In fact, the former recently apologized to the latter for an argument that happened decades ago.
Danson and Woody Harrelson, who played Woody Boyd on Cheers, host the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast together, and their latest episode saw them catching up with Grammer. During the trio’s conversation, Danson admitted that he “got stuck a little bit” with Grammer during the Cheers years, as he had “a memory of getting angry” at the Frasier actor once. After Grammer noted that he knew what Danson was talking about, The Good Place alum continued:
And it's stuck in both of our memories. But I feel like, fuck, I don't know. I missed out on the last 30 years of Kelsey Grammer and I feel like it's my bad, my doing, and I almost feel like apologizing to you. I know I feel like, I apologize to you and me that I sat back, you know, and didn't, and I really do apologize.
Ted Danson and Kelsey Grammer didn’t provide specific details about what prompted this argument, but all these years later, Danson felt it necessary to take responsibility for what he did. Considering that Danson reprised Sam Malone in an episode of the original Frasier, evidently whatever unfolded wasn’t bad enough that the two couldn’t at least work together post-Cheers, but was nonetheless bad enough that Danson felt he missed out on a lot of quality time with his former co-star. Still, it sounds like the two men have been on good terms for a while now, and Grammer had this to say after Danson apologized:
You said something wonderful to me though, too, that I've always, I quote to other people. When I turned 40, you came up and you said, you know what it means, don't you? Now that you're 40, it means you're finally worth having a conversation with. That was fucking brilliant. I always loved that. And I thought, and I've repeated it. And my love for you has always been as easy as the day. You know, as easy as the sunrise.
Hopefully Danson and Grammer being so cozy with each others bodes well for the chances of then collaborating on screen together. After all, the new Frasier is set in Boston, Massachusetts, and while it’s already been clarified that there are no plans to revisit the Cheers bar on the show, that doesn’t Frasier Crane can’t reunite with some people the days before he moved out to Seattle. Kelsey Grammer has specifically expressed interest in having Ted Danson and Shelly Long, who played Diane Chambers, come back, and since the Frasier showrunners told me they have “a few toeholds” into Cheers-related stories, maybe that’s something we can look forward to in a potential Season 3.
For now, you can revisit Cheers and the original Frasier, and keep up with the current Frasier, on Paramount+, with the latter releasing new episodes Thursdays on the 2024 TV schedule.
